This Will Continue

Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation is now basically a certainty. It will be finalized tomorrow. But this won’t be entirely the end of the story. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has made clear that if the Democrats take over the House of Representatives next year his committee will set about doing the investigation Senate Republicans and the White House refused to do. But now there’s this: FOIA lawsuits by Senate Democrats and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that have unearthed information “about potentially thousands of Brett Kavanaugh’s White House emails and other records related to the Senate hacking scandal from early in the George W. Bush administration and other controversial subjects that have not been disclosed to the Senate.”

Here’s the article. It’s not totally clear how much is really there. Read the piece to get your own sense. These emails are now approved for release, though White House could step in and say no.

But whether or not there’s gold, as it were, in this trove isn’t really the point. Republicans have jammed through the Kavanaugh nomination while keeping a lot of stuff hidden or un-investigated. Once he’s seated he’ll be almost impossible to pry off the Court. But over time these things can and I suspect will be investigated, certainly after the raw and aggrieved sentiments over how this played out.

Republicans won’t have any regrets. They got their seat. That’s really all they care about. But this will continue. There’s no time limit on getting to the bottom of these questions.